Prosper Australia

“The greatest source of redistribution to the rich occurs through the land market, which is usually the largest tangible market in modern economies.”

Philip Soos’ latest withering attack on privilege from The Conversation today. Over the last year or so, the Occupy movement has garnered wide attention, with people of all backgrounds gathering to protest the deteriorating social conditions. However, these grievances have been running for decades. The bottom 80% of US income earners have seen their wages [...]

photo credit: dcmaster Barry O’Farrell was elected Premier of NSW in March this year. His first budget announced Tuesday raised a storm of protest – not over a realignment of government priorities to his conservative Coalition’s agenda, but on Stamp Duty. The previous Keneally ALP government had exempted first home buyers (on houses up to [...]

photo credit: George Laoutaris Will Greece Let EU Central Bankers Run Riot Over Sovereignty? Michael Hudson When Greece exchanged its drachma for the euro in 2000, most voters were all for joining the Eurozone. Their hope was that it would ensure stability, and that this would promote rising wages and living standards. Few saw that [...]

Arab cities lack even the basic facilities we take for granted in the West. The royals live alongside. Their giant palaces nestle in irrigated manicured gardens surrounded by high walls and efficient security.

Last Thursday, the Australian Financial Review leaked Treasury forecasts that the revenues lost in the Gillard Government’s back down on the mining tax will exceed $100 billion over the next ten years

photo credit: Travis S. The US housing market is a living hell.  Homeowners are being boiled alive. The price of land was bid up to staggering multiples of incomes, until it no longer made sense to buy a house. And then the trend turned, hard and fast. One in five US mortgages is ‘underwater’: the [...]

Melbourne City Council is selling lanes to developers, according to The Age today. It makes a pretty penny, too, having pocketed $1.2 million from the sale of part of three lanes in the last 12 months alone. The article sparked an intense debate on the newspaper’s blog.  Sales are energetically supported by citizens disgusted by [...]

  photo credit: robertivanc The great property speculation game is over in America and Europe.  The music has stopped. Forty years of steadily increasing pressure has been released.  Houses are worth a fraction of what people paid in better times, while the giant mortgages they took on remain. Meanwhile, Australia parties on.  We play the [...]

photo credit: Cayusa   Tax reform is hard for government: losers complain loud and long, while those who will benefit are suspicious and silent. We should be angry as hell about the tax system.  It scoops up the earnings of the poor but merely nips at what the wealthy make. That’s why the Victorian Treasury [...]